Me Time ✨

Hello, everybody. My name is Jean Nichols. I am here with a little me time. Just give everybody a few minutes. I'm calling in from Minneapolis, Minnesota, today, and we have a heat warning. Hello, Deanna. How are you today? Where are you calling in from today or listening in? So I am in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Hello, Rachel. Nice to have you join. My name is Jean. It's nice to be here today with all of you. I started by saying I'm calling in from Minneapolis, and we have, like, a heat index warning this weekend.

And it's funny because it's been warm ish all summer long, and today the heat index is somewhere over 100 and it's humid. And to be honest, like, you gasp a little when you walk out the door, but then it feels kind of delightful and yummy. I know I'm probably one of the crazy people that says that, but I love warm. I still went to the coffee shop this afternoon and got a matcha, and I did the hot and instead of the iced because I just like the feeling of warm. It's kind of my thing. Hello, everybody.

Welcome, welcome. I'm calling in this afternoon from Minneapolis. I usually dial in in the morning, but as I've mentioned on a few other Sunday cadres, I am training for a couple of marathons. I am said a couple. Yes, people will call me a runner. And I have to pause because, yes, I am running. I wouldn't say I'm one of the those individuals who likes to run or runs every day, but I do have a mission and a purpose to run these world six marathons. There's a. If you run marathons, apparently there's this thing called the world six marathons.

And I've decided to do each of these marathons for charity in honor of my mom and dad. On September 8, it'll have been two years since my dad passed. And in October, on October 15 or October 10, I believe it would be one year anniversary for my mom passing. And so I decided I wanted to give back because both my parents were very much inspirations to me. I'm adopted. My brother is their biological child. And they brought me into their family. And I feel so grateful for having had their love in my life for so long and their support.

And both of them, in their own way, were healers and so charitable. My mom was a nurse, and her work was really valued and important. She worked her last job helping babies with trachs so they could live longer than what was expected, and it brought her purpose. My dad was a very high empath. I'm also a high empath, and he just had a unique way of seeing people and really helping people to feel seen and heard. And so when they passed, I wanted to do something that would help me heal from the void that I feel in my heart, from all the love that doesn't have the same place to go.

But I also wanted to do something that could be their legacy living on through me. And so I decided to do these marathons. So I was up marathon training today, which is why I'm calling in in the afternoon instead of the morning. And it is pretty appropriate. I crashed today. I was supposed to do 20 miles today. And as I mentioned, it's really hot. And I worked a long time yesterday. I was on my feet for about 12 hours yesterday, working at a spin studio and working at a street festival for the studio.

And it's hot here. And I got dehydrated. And today I just hit a certain point in my distance, and I ran out of water, and I got dehydrated. I got in my head, my chest started to hurt because I was starting to feel so much stress in my head about what I wasn't accomplishing that I could completely forgot what I had already accomplished, which I had already ran pretty far in these really extreme heat. And my body was just really tired today. And that's okay. So, my question, or my invitation to all of you on this beautiful Sunday, is when have you had the experience?

When you had a goal or a destination or purpose or an idea, and you fell a little bit short? Like, how did that make you feel? Did you focus on the amount of space you had to get to the end? Or did you celebrate how far you had come to get a little bit closer than maybe you had the last time you tried? So I will tell you, I hit a point where I stopped running. I went to get one of those little uber bikes that you can rent in Minneapolis so I could get the rest way home. I still had three and a half miles to go, and I just.

I couldn't get one because I needed to update my license in the app. And I've used this thing so many times, and I just started to cry, and I felt like I was failing. I just did this thought spiral. And we've all had them, right? We all. We all get in our head. When we get really close and we're not quite there, we start to think about how we might be not enough, not good enough. What could we have done differently? What could we have done better? But I took that time as I was waiting humbly for an uber to come pick me up because I was soaked, I was dehydrated, I was exhausted, my legs hurt.

All of it? All of it. And then I remembered how far I had ran already and a really hot day. And another person that I run with was like, wow, you tried to run today. Woof. And I just started to think about what I saw on my run, and I started to just celebrate how far I did get. And it really helped me to try to lift up a little bit. So when I think about, you know, those times, whether it's running or not, it doesn't matter. It could be that job that you wanted to get. It could be. I don't know, it could be a certification.

Maybe you just couldn't complete because the situation didn't afford you the opportunity to. Maybe lifeing happened and you needed to take a pause. My question that goes through my head is, what do we do next to help us align back into our purpose? The thing that we know that we're really passionate about, that we are ready to do? How do we get ourselves back there when we find that we hit a pothole? So my day on Sundays usually is a lot about taking that time to reflect and pause, and I'm not always great at that.

And all of us who come on here and present and host conversations with you, we all are human. We will all share with you our humble moments and our vulnerable moments and authentic moments as an opportunity to help us each feel like we're not alone. And as a high empath, it was interesting because on my run today, I stopped to get. I stopped to take some water. I had to get my nutrition in. And I don't usually do this, but I checked my messages, and I had a note from a friend who is a nurse. So every one of you who is in the medical profession, I just want to say thank you.

Whatever it is that you do, your work is really important, and it matters. But I know that it's really hard because I remember the conversations with my mom when she maybe lost a patient, or it was just a really hard day and she couldn't really talk about it. My girlfriend is a nurse, and she lives in a different city and just kind of feels alone sometimes. And so she had reached out to me, and as I was running, I just felt a nerd to check my messages as I was rehydrating. And she had just sent me a note, and she lost the patient to cancer the other day, and she had befriended this person over the last year, because she works in the chemo area and was there with them every week when they would get their chemo treatments.

And. And that last just hit her really hard, and she feels just really alone. She didn't have a lot of friends around her this weekend, and so I just would send her as many virtual hugs as possible, and I sent her a message, and I was just like, hey, I'm here. What do you need? I can't hug you in person, but I will hug you from afar. And whether or not we're in the same city or not, alone. I'm here with you. Call. And it just reminded me that we all have something, right? We are all going through something, and there are so many times where we feel like we just need to keep it in.

So I debated sharing about how bad I bonked today on my rung, because the marathon is coming up the first of two, and I feel a little underprepared to accomplish this goal in honor of my mom and daddy. But I know I'm gonna start. I know I'm gonna finish. I just don't know what's gonna happen in between. But how often is it that we take that time to really reflect and reach out to somebody, whether they're near or far, to just say, I need a hand. Like, I just need help? So, Uber was my help today as I cried when I couldn't get one of those Uber bikes because I didn't have my driver's license with me.

And the lady that picked me up was so kind. And then I called my friend when I got done to see if she was okay, and she was busy, and so I left her a voicemail, and she sent me a voice note back. It's in those moments where we are the most vulnerable. Hate jewels. It's in those moments where we feel broken. Short of whatever our goal is, our destination is, it's in those moments where we feel like we aren't enough. It's inside those moments where, when we can humbly reach out to one person. And today, it was my Uber driver.

Her name was Sharon. She was delightful. We had the best conversation, and she asked how my run went, and I was like, not great. And she's like, girl, it's hot. I was like, I know. It's just in those little bitty moments that somewhere along the way, the universe, God, whatever you believe, will send you something that you need. And sometimes it requires a. To take that first step to just say, hey, I feel alone right now. I feel like I missed the mark, or I feel like I don't have anyone to talk to because we don't want to be the one that burdens the others around us.

But what if we remembered that sharing those humble moments with someone else actually is a gift because it gives somebody else the opportunity to be there for you? So we are always the strong one, then that means that someone else might feel like they're always the weak one. And that's not true. We ebb and flow throughout life. But if we take that one opportunity to say, I need a hand today, or I need a hug today, or I'm really sad today, and we reach out or put that out there, we just gave somebody a gift because they finally get to return the favor.

They finally get to return the energy that all of us so graciously put out into the world for everybody else. They can finally feel like they get to pay that gift back to you. So, today, that gift was an Uber driver named Sharon in a light blue cardinal. And all she did was ask me, when I got in the car, how did my run go? Because I was sweaty and my water bottle was empty, and I had a runner bag on. So she knew that it wasn't a good day if I was calling her. And she just held space for me. And that was all I needed in that one moment to realize I didn't fail.

I actually did really well. It just was a really hard day. And sometimes you just have to recognize that on those hard days, you can push through. And I thought about it. I thought about pushing through today. But then I realized that if I crashed and bonked even more, it could be worse for my health. I could. My legs were starting to cramp. I could tear a muscle. I could pull a hamstring. I could do something else, because I was just too physically and mentally drained to complete the next few miles.

And that's okay, because today, I didn't finish and charge through because my coach told me to. I stopped because my body and my mind said I needed to stop today. And even though I, in my own head, feel like I failed, right? Because we get those voices in our head, and they're so strong. I didn't fail. I won. Because I listened to my body. I listened to my heart. I listened to my head. I ask for help, and I get to celebrate how far I got today, and I'll try again on another day, and it's going to be just fine.

Jules, I love that you share. You had a friend tell you that you look like you needed a hug last week and he gave you one and you started to cry. I love that hugs are important. And if you google this, go for it. Google it. There's actual science around the fact that if you give someone a hug for 10 seconds, it actually can start to shift the dopamine in our brain. So I'm gonna go find a hug. I might find ten because today's a ten hug day. Ten hugs, 10 seconds. But what if you just go find one hug for 10 seconds, start to feel that shift, but also give yourself permission to take what you need in the moments that you need it.

And sometimes pushing through isn't always the best thing. Sometimes the most courageous thing that you can possibly do is say, I need to take a pause. I need to take a breath. I need to try again. A different day. Because today's not that day. And know that that's okay. Because even though we feel alone, and I keep thinking about my girlfriend in a different city who is feeling that so strongly today, think about myself out there, running today by myself, how alone we might feel in those moments where we might be crashing or bonking, we're never really alone.

We have more people around us that are just waiting for us to hold out our hand and ask for help. So I hope you all have a great day today. I hope that if you are having that day, that you reach out and ask for help. If you want, send me a DM or a comment in the comments or put it out into the Cadre universe and we'll be there for you always. We will be there for you. I hope you have an amazing day. And if you're not having an amazing day, I hope you just have your day. Whatever that is for you.

Ask for what you need, take what you need, take me time. Take time for you and just celebrate how far you've come. Because you've come farther than we give ourselves credit for and that you give yourselves credit for. I'll see you soon. I'll be here tomorrow for professional development. I look forward to every conversation with you. Thank you for joining me. If you're listening on replay and you have anything of inspiration or wisdom that you would love to share, please do so and we'll talk to you all soon.